This was my first trip to India--and my first trip abroad. The long flight landed in Singapore and Japan before we finally touched down in Chennai (Madras). Seeing Vinesh's parents and sister for the first time was a wonderful and touching experience for me. Because of the internet, however, we all felt like we knew each other already.
Vinesh was also glad to be home and remarked on the whole drive home how much his city had changed--more crowded, more billboards, and more color. Actually, it was Vinesh who had changed. His sister Kamini insisted that it was the same old Chennai he had left three years earlier. For me, it was an adventure and I can't wait to go back to explore this fun city. This is a picture of the Anna Flyover in downtown Chennai, only a few miles from Vinesh's home. This picture was found at this web site, but I believe it was scanned from a post card. |
As soon as we arrived, I had to be fitted into my Sari blouse, which was custom made to fit. "Make it low in the front and back," Vinesh's Amma insisted, much to my embarassment and flattery. There are 3 saris used in a Hindu wedding. The first one is used before the ceremony, while the priest blesses the wedding garments of bride and groom. The second sari, traditionally a red one, is used for the actual ceremony. A third sari is used for the reception. I was surprised to learn that the heavy weight of my saris was caused by the real gold thread that was woven into the silk. The reception sari, a handsome cranberry brocade, was the heaviest of all. I am wearing the brocade sari in the introduction to the photo album.
The day before the wedding was very busy for the Sukumaran household. A dozen Aunties came over to cook, clean, polish silver, and prepare gift baskets for the guests. In our wedding, the men received a bag with a coconut, sweets, and mango leaves; the women received small silver bowls with sweets and red kum kum powder. Here is a picture of one of the Aunties preparing the oil lamps for our wedding ceremony.
Before the evening was over, the workers had strung festive orange lights in the trees outside the Sukumaran house, erected a gateway complete with two banana trees and flowers, and built a marriage platform with a solid canopy of jasmine flowers and mango leaves. It was a fairyland. The musicians arrived from the village and started practicing late into the night, so if I was not going to get any sleep that night because of nerves, they made sure of it with their music! This is a photo of the front gate of the Sukumaran household as decorated for our wedding.
Although it's not traditional in South Indian weddings, I insisted that my hands and feet be painted with Mehendi as I had seen in the movies. The night of the wedding, Kamini, Ramya (a cousin), Cyrene (Neville's sister), and I went to a place to have the Mehendi applied. Although it looks complicated, it only took the three sisters we hired less than an hour to apply Mehendi to all four of us.
The long part of the Mehendi process was letting it set. We all carefully drove home and sat with our hands and feet straight out for nearly three hours. We had hourly treatments of lime and sugar to make it set. Once it set, it dried to a black paste and after 3 hours it was a hard, sticky mess. We scraped the paste off with oil and a spoon and found a pale orange underneath. The red comes out only when you apply mentholatum rub (like Vicks) and let it set overnight.
Tradition says that the redder the bride's Mehendi comes out, the better husband she'll have. I must have a darned good husband, because this is what I found when I woke up on my wedding day.